Part 2 of 5: The Whites of the Teeth
(part 1)
“Ah, how do you say it, an adaptation.” He put one hand on the bar, the other on the girl’s shoulder. “An adaptation for our times. Pinocchio, you know, but, uh, he is a robot. And he just wants to be loved. But a girl robot. And he wants to be human. She. Wants to be human. And, uh, there is big boobs, so no one takes her seriously, they just want her for pleasure and because you can’t knock her up, but it will be sad! And then happy! But first she will adjust to the human life by killing the men who wronged her, maybe, in awesome fashions, just because I don’t want to make, uh, how do you say it, a film for the girls. Chick flick. Chick flick, yes, this I don’t want. More Pernod! Yes.”
I took off my hat. “Reynard,” I said, walking towards him through the cramped space, “you have no shame.” The walls of Pharmacy Bar were garishly painted and clashed with the exposed brick in places. Incongruous Top 40 hits of yesteryear brushed elbows with shoddy hardcore CD-Rs in its jukebox, and an orange Savannah Safari arcade machine took up valuable corner space, daring its users to shoot various endangered or threatened species with an orange plastic rifle for points or glory. At the back of the space sat the bar. At the bar sat Reynard, his broad and angular face enveloping the whole room as he turned to face me.
“It is an Asian dick,” said Reynard, waving his well-kept and pale palms in front of his dark Cameroonian face. “Also a lovely hat, Byron.”
“He hits girls,” I said to the bleach-blonde twenty-something sitting to his left. “And he doesn’t really say ‘how you say.’ Or even have an accent, really.”
Reynard frowned at me as the girl made her escape. “That is what the French would call asymmetrical warfare, huh? Do you like that hat so much?”
“I needed a seat,” I said, taking the newly-vacant stool. “And, uh, you might be the only black man I know smaller than I am, so…”
“The oppressed peoples, turning on one another rather than fighting the true enemy. What would your Chairman Mao think?”
“Probably a lot less of you for your French passport.”
Reynard smiled. “True!” The tiniest dram of Pernod slithered between his lips. “Alas.”
I ordered a Beefeater on the rocks. Reynard shook his head in disapproval, but said nothing until I had taken my first sip. His brown eyes studied my unkempt hair, my sinewy coat with its svelte shoulder pads. He was sizing up the nature of the request, I realized.
“A pathetic drink,” he said as I winced. “If one wants straight liquor, one should go for straight liquor, the kind that burns the lips and warms the soul.”
“Speaking of which,” I asked, “how’s business?”
Reynard threw up his hands. “Miserable!” he said. “On all fronts. I go to work, I am confronted by angry colonial men requesting work visas, or angry white women who want to work as teachers in Guyana, but I process their visas, and then I am taken out to these bars where the Americans have become so recalcitrant to my wiles, Byron, that I am tempted to give up on your society altogether and move to New York.”
I parsed this for a second. “You’ve been drinking for awhile,” I ventured.
“Were I not tethered diplomatically to this shit-hold, I would be gone in a heartbeat.”
“Shit-hole,” I corrected him. “Slang for toilet.”
He frowned. “That makes it much less interesting.”
“Yeah.” I sighed and twisted my plastic swizzle stick in my drink as the ice melted. “Anyhow, don’t go anywhere, I have a French question for you.”
“Charlemagne,” replied Reynard automatically. “Charlemagne or Charles de Gaulle. Two asshole Charleses, adrift on a sea of time. That’s usually the answer to most questions about France.”
“Not here. Here it’s, like, ‘cheese,’ or ‘surrender,’ or something like that.”
“Here? Not in Washington. They’re too literate for that nonsense, unless they’re actual elected officials. Sometimes they confuse pied noir, though, which is a little cute.”
I let the corners of my lips drop into a scowl. Reynard was the first person I’d spoken to face-to-face in twenty-four hours, but even then he was trying. “I need to know about a place called Aumerle House,” I said. “Does that sound like any French organization? You have any idea where it could be?”
“Aumerle House?” Reynard’s eyes flashed skyward. “I’m drawing blank, Byron. Nothing. Did you google it?”
I gave my eyes a more leisurely opportunity to roll. “What, you think I tracked you down because Google was down? Listen, my brother needs a photo of it by Friday, some big project they’re working on out in SF—“
“What’s SF?”
“San Francisco.”
“Oh. Gays and hills.”
“He lives in Oakland.”
“Blacks, gays, and an ugly bridge.”
“You’re vicious.”
“I learned a lot to get diplomatic work in your dirty country. So what? Why such a big deal? Is he paying you?”
I laughed. “Not likely. I just… I mean, look, I’m stuck out here over the break, Vicky’s not coming, I’ve got nothing… to do…”
“I can offer you a choice selection!” said Reynard, baring his pearly teeth.
Reynard’s mouth was a study in speed. The ends of his upper and lower incisors did not meet—they were pearly and precise, but rounded, slowly chewed-off. He kept them white through a steady diet of Trident gum when not crushing Ephedrine pills between his molars to extend his Adderall peak.
“Whoa, uh, Reynard, meth first and ask questions later?” I leaned back from him at the bar, taking my gin with me.
“Meth?” Reynard made a noise halfway between a dismissive “pah” and a snort. “How uncivilized. I let the French Embassy take full advantage of your health care system, then I take full advantage of it. Concentration’s a terrible thing to waste, Byron—want some?”
I stared at Reynard’s grin as it re-appeared with a mixed sense of distaste and elation. Something to push me through the night tempted me enough to begin the process of nodding before I caught the glimpse of a woman my age at a table next to the arcade game, watching. I closed my own eyes as soon as hers settled on me, but I’d gathered enough by her brown hair tucked back into a pony-tail and easy smile: a femme fatale for the quirky men. I was in trouble.
“That girl over there at that table is watching us,” I told Reynard, not altering my position. “Don’t look,” I added as Reynard’s head whipped around like a dog’s hanging out a car window.
“The one in the men’s dress shirt?” he asked. I’d been so taken by her face that her shirt hadn’t even crossed my mind.
That’s the one,” I said, fixing my gaze at the wall after a quick check to confirm.
“Ha, you are out of luck, my friend,” said Reynard. “No matter your intentions, she’s a—“
I cut him off with a curt hiss. The girl had stood up and was moving, empty glass suspended in her right hand, towards us. She separated us at the knees while at the bar and ordered a whiskey sour. After a premeditated beat, she turned to me.
“Did I hear you say something about Aumerle House?” she asked. “Sorry, uh, I don’t mean to intrude on your conversation, I just, uh, kind of noticed, and it’s hard to find.”
“Yes!” I almost shouted. “Can you tell me about it?”
“Wait,” she said, pulling out a wad of singles for her drink. I slapped a twenty-dollar bill down on the bar.
“Change please,” I said, adding, “Listen, that’s on me, I just need to know for an art publisher. Someone who doesn’t even do much of anything.”
The girl looked at me. Her eyes narrowed. A moment passed as she scrutinized my forehead. “I’m not even, uh, sure what to make of that,” she said.
“Sorry, sorry,” I replied. “I’m not trying to be coy, or any of those things. My name’s Byron.”
“Delia,” said the girl. “My friend Melanie’s in the bathroom, but I think I’m the only one who knows about Aumerle in my—“
Reynard put a hand on her shoulder.
“You talk to this man?” he said. “He hits women, you know. Claims it’s all safety. Me, I am, how you say, into protection.”
Delia turned to Reynard, yelped, and spilled her whiskey sour into the bar’s well. Her eyes filled with water as she twisted away from both of us and stormed out.
“Fuck! Reynard!”
“Now we are even,” said Reynard, putting his hands happily behind his head and lying back into open space with his eyes closed in contentment. “No one interrupts me hitting on women—especially not you, Byron Xu.”
“That was my only lead!”
Once again, Reynard deployed the worn-down smile. “There are plenty of fish in the sea,” he said. “Besides, I knew her. Not worth it.”
“What?”
Reynard sighed. “Do you think I hadn’t tried before? She’s a Republican, Byron. Out of your league. Forever.”
By last call, both of us were loaded out of disgust, and while Reynard walked home talking loudly to a girl who worked for Blue Cross/Blue Shield about my misadventures, I stumbled back towards the apartment alone, cursing my luck in exciting terms as I paced the pavement.
As I reached my door, my BlackBerry buzzed again. I dove into my pocket to retrieve it, but it was only a Twitter alert. Someone had responded to me again. Drunk and irritable, I passed by my Mac on the filthy table, stormed into the kitchen, flung my hands out in picking up a bottle of Coke Zero only to send the peanut butter knife embedded in the Skippy jar flying down under the dining room table, and fell asleep on the sofa, awakened now and again by a persistent, reliant hum from the phone—new messages, growing by the hour.
Part 3 Friday evening.
November 26, 2009, 11:56pm Comments
